In what century was Pastry making officially recognized as a profession?!
In what century was Pastry making officially recognized as a profession?
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pastry n.
Danish pastry n.
French pastry n.
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pastry
general name for baked articles of food made of paste or having paste as a necessary ingredient. The name is also used for the paste itself. The essential elements of paste are flour, liquid (usually milk or water, sometimes beaten egg), and shortening. The making of pastry was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, but its modern development in the Western world dates from the late 18th cent. Pastry is classed according to the amount of shortening used and the method of blending it with the flour as plain, flaky, and puff pastry. Plain pastry is used to cover meat or fruit pies; flaky pastry, which requires more shortening than plain, is used in strudels and the Turkish baklava. Puff pastry is used in the making of cream puffs and éclairs.
probably france
"Officially recognised" is a term not easily reconciled with historical realities. We tend to have to rely on indirect reference and our own inferences from scant snippets of information that happen to survive to later times.
When Cathérine de Médicis' retinue is described in 1540, its number includes her 'Chef Patissier'. An Italian, its unlikely he styled himself with that title, but some court official obviously found the term meaningful enough to make note of it at the time.
By the middle of the next century, book titles -- books still being tremendously valuable and scarce resources then -- indicate that the term as a professional distinction is well established. One of the founding fathers of grande cuisine, Pierre Fran?ois la Varenne, a few years following his Le Cuisinier Fran?ois [not a typo!] of 1651, has a further book ascribed to him in print: Le Patissier Fran?ois. [again not a typo!]
By the time of Laguipiere, and then, immediately following, the greatest patissier and chef of all, Antonin Carême (1783-1833), when the latter refers to himself, it is as 'Patissier Fran?ais' which is the proudest assertion of his craft he knows and values.
So, in short, recognition is a process, not a single moment, not a single instance in time...